Faculty push for freedom to change, own curriculum

The council's last two meetings have touched on incentives.

By Mary Novokhovsky

Published April 27, 2010

MU's intellectual property policy might stand in the way of Faculty Council's push for more freedom to change and own course curriculum.

During the council's last meeting April 22, journalism professor Clyde Bentley said he wanted greater freedom to modify his curriculum. He said curriculum modification was supposed to be a place where professors are allowed a great deal of input but said it has not been simple for him to make changes.

If faculty members are given more freedom in the modification and creation of curriculum, then the matter of intellectual ownership comes into play. The property of research and work done by faculty and staff is their own copyright until they begin to utilize a significant amount of university resources.

Faculty also discussed the issue of determining what specifically is considered significant resources. Intellectual property policy will be further discussed during the general faculty meeting April 29.

"The collective rules as they were written were unintelligible," Faculty Council Chairwoman Leona Rubin said about the draft of the intellectual property policy during the council's April 7 meeting.

Rubin said faculty shouldn't have to be afraid to do individual work because of the policy.

"There should be encouragement for doing this without losing your copyright," Rubin said.

Economics professor Xiaoguang Ni said faculty and staff needed to establish concrete grievances and desires they wanted to communicate to the administration. Ni said without clarity they were simply discussing matters of unhappiness and details were needed to come to a solution.

"If they want something more concrete we can give them details," Ni said. "Otherwise we're just talking about unhappiness."

An employee benefits survey conducted by UM system Human Resources found MU faculty and staff were less content than other schools' faculty when it came to the support and motivation they receive from the university.

Although faculty and staff members are seeking more incentives from the administration, their salaries will remain stagnant after the UM system Board of Curators' April 16 decision to bar salary increases. MU faculty salaries rank 33 out of 34 schools in the Association of American Universities.

"Given the current economic situation we are recommending no salary merit increases for FY 2011," the Board of Curators Finances Committee agenda stated. "Regardless of campus resources, the campuses would be prohibited from giving merit increases."

Given the impossibility of a monetary reward for faculty as a result of hard work, Faculty Council continues to look for the opportunity to get back for what they give in different ways.